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The H Week - openSUSE 11.4, Chrome 10, Pwn2Own & Android malware

In the week of the Pwn2Own hacker contest, The H published an interview with Charlie Miller and Dino Dai Zovi, as well as two new editions in the Kernel Log series. Google released Chrome 10 and openSUSE 11.4 arrived, Nokia sold off the services arm of Qt and Panasonic joined the Linux Foundation. Google worked to remove malware from Android devices and Apple released a variety of software updates for its products.

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This week, Glyn Moody took a look at Microsoft's monoculture and The H published the full text of an interview with Charlie Miller and Dino Dai Zovi, co-authors of "The Mac Hacker's Handbook", as well as two new editions of the Kernel Log series looking at what's coming in the next release of the Linux kernel.

Open Source

This week, Google released a major update to the stable branch of its Chrome web browser, as well as a new version of the VP8 Codec SDK for the free VP8 web video format. A new logo for the open source Chromium web browser upon which Chrome is based appeared, and, according to reports, the United States Department of Justice is now investigating the MPEG LA patent licensing company.

Nokia confirmed that it is selling the commercial licensing and professional services arm of its Qt group, the MeeGo architects made changes to architecture plans for the mobile operating system, and, OpenLogic announced that its survey of iOS and Android applications found that 71 per cent of mobile apps with FOSS code do not comply with the terms of the licence for that code.

The Free Software Foundation announced that it has appointed a new executive director and Panasonic joined the Linux Foundation as a Gold Member, the organisation's second-highest corporate membership tier. VMware's SpringSource acquired graphical web development tool WaveMaker and Rackspace announced that it would be providing commercial support, training and services for OpenStack.

In Linux news this week, the final version of openSUSE 11.4 was released, as was version 11 of Gentoo Linux, and, Java was removed from the latest version of the Linux Standard Base. Mark Shuttleworth announced the new name for Ubuntu 11.10 and the Ubuntu developers confirmed that with the next major release, Ubuntu 11.04, the Netbook Edition would be folded into the main branch.

Security

This week, Google used the "remote removal function" built into Android to remove malware from devices and closed a cross-site scripting hole in the Android Market that allowed attackers to install apps to devices without user consent. Security services provider Kaspersky criticised Google's handling of the recent Android malware problems and it was discovered that a group of criminals had installed a trojan into the Android Market Security Tool that was released by Google.

Apple released a number of updates this week, including security updates for Java, a new version of the iOS mobile operating system and a maintenance release of the Safari web browser. On the first day of the Pwn2Own hacker contest, no one attacked Google's Chrome web browser; on day two both the iPhone and BlackBerry handhelds were hacked.

Investigations into the WordPress attacks began, the internet activist group Anonymous attacked the site of Broadcast Music Inc., and the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) released a report on methods for detecting, measuring and fighting botnets. The French Budget Minister confirmed a report by Paris Match magazine which said that his ministry fell victim to a cyber attack in December 2010, and, The H reported on vulnerabilities in implementations of the STARTTLS protocol for establishing an encrypted TLS connection that could allow commands to be injected into a connection.